Endgame is Out!

Alternative Truths III: Endgame 

The final volume in the best-selling Alternative Truths series from B Cubed Press. Edited by Bob Brown and Jess Faraday,

Endgame features 30 of today’s best writers and political thinkers taking a look forward at possible outcomes of our political decisions.

Humor and satire reign supreme in this collection. If you want to laugh, read Jim Wright’s "Bathroom Breakdown,” a side-splitting vision of Donald J. Trump at his best or follow the antics of a beleaguered Attorney General in Debora Godfrey’s work, “No Excuses” as he tries to convince the President that he has tried and convicted Hillary Clinton.

This collection has visions of a better world as well. In Paula Hammond’s “Fortunate Son,” we explore what kind of man Donald Trump might have become had he answered his country’s call and served alongside his fellow Americans in the Vietnam War.

Most of all Endgame will make you think, with thought-provoking essays by the likes of David Gerrold and Adam-Troy Castro as they seek to share their understanding of how this happened and what do will we do.


A significant portion of the proceeds of this book is donated to the ACLU of Washington to honor and support their unending quest for the freedom of the American people to express themselves.

The book is available in print and electronic media from Amazon.com.


ISBN-13: 978-1-949476-05-7

Electronic ISBN-13: 978-1-949476-06-4


The book is priced at $5.99 for ebook and $12.25 for print. The book is published by B Cubed Press and can be followed on Twitter @BCUBEDBOB.


Kindle Edition

Print Book

Contributors

Foreword, Becky McFarland Kyle


Bathroom Breakdown, Jim Wright


The First Lady is Missing, Louise Marley


Waiting for Gustavo, DB Lipton


Tyrannus ab ultima Epistulae, Frédéric J.A.M. Poirier


The Ballad of Cadet Bone Spurs, Larry Hodges


Politics As Usual, K.G. Anderson


Act Three, David Gerrold


Stupid?, Adam-Troy Castro


Fortunate Son, Paula Hammond


Final Tweet, Nathan Ockerman


Hell’s Angel, Robert Walton


What is Hate?, Joyce Frohn


Beautocracy, Natalie Zellat Dyen


Alien Tweetstorm Apocalypse, Kurt Newton


I, Apparatchik, Philip Brian Hall


Democralypse, Bruce Golden


Exit, Stage Right, Daniel M. Kimmel


No Excuse, Debora Godfrey


Last Interview, Melinda LaFevers


All the Prez’s Men, Liam Hogan


The Train, Annie Percik


Once You Start, Mike Morgan


Babble, Charles Walbridge


America Once Beautiful, Gregg Chamberlain


Women March, Gwyndyn T. Alexander


Skin in the Game, Harold Gross


Passing on Fire, Joyce Frohn


The Great White Wall, Larry Hodges


Mr. President’s No Good, Lousy Day, Stephanie L. Weippert


The Nature of the Problem, Thomas A. Easton


Sanctuary for Those on Simmer, Sarah Bigham


Gold and Ivory, Cobalt Jade

Back to Business

To purloin an apposite line of Shakespeare, “We are in Brexit stepped in so far that, should we wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er.”

I think Remainers still preserve the hope that all this unpleasantness could easily be put behind us if only we could hold a second referendum and vote, however narrowly, the opposite way. Well, we could try, but it would never work, for two reasons:

• The EU would be sure to demand guarantees that a humiliated UK would not seek to recover some self-esteem by obstructing their renewed efforts towards integration and a United States of Europe. Please remember that the Eurozone already caucus separately from the other members and can outvote them in Council. There are fewer and fewer areas of effective veto powers that the UK can use since the extension of qualified majority voting. Cameron’s deal, exempting the UK from ‘ever closer union’ is no longer on the table. I can’t see how the UK could expect to preserve its rebate, or its exceptional status in respect of the Euro and Schengen even into the medium term. And the next Eurozone crisis is surely on its way as the crippled economies of southern Europe drag like a sea anchor on the bloc’s economic growth.

• The EU is only too aware that the struggle for Brexit has entrenched bitter hostility to it in half the UK population, and they will expect UK politicians to exploit that at any and every opportunity. They will not be disappointed in that expectation. Today, as the government’s hapless efforts to negotiate Brexit have floundered, Labour has been able to win the support of disaffected Remainers without even committing itself to Remain. Does anyone seriously think that frustrated Leavers will not be equally easily rallied behind vigorous domestic opposition to the first infelicitous new EU policy that comes along? After Remain, a pro-EU government would be every bit as vulnerable to anti-EU sentiment in the polls as the present government is to Remainer sentiment. If the two-party system broke under the strain, we might even find parliament’s Remainer majority eroded away and replaced by Leavers. 

You can’t simply suppress an ambition as powerful as Brexit has become. You can’t go back and pretend it never happened. You can only suck it and see. Either it will succeed, and thus eventually reunite the nation behind it, or it will fail, and thus eventually reunite the nation behind a desire to rejoin.

In consequence, parliament now faces the same choices that they faced before it, and these choices will not have become any more palatable. A second referendum offers no long term solution, as explained above. May’s deal will still be awful and will still not be a Brexit deal. Calling an election will require a lot of turkeys to vote for Christmas.

No-Deal will still be the least bad option and, if we get started right after the break, we might even be ready for it by October.

The Charge Against The Short-sighted Brigade

(with apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

I

Half a week, half a month,

Half a year longer,

Holding back Brexit

   Stand the five hundred.

“Delay, Remain MPs!

Never No-Deal!” they say.

Careless of obloquy

   Stand the five hundred.

II

“Delay, Remain MPs!”

Is there a one can see

No-Deal is what we have

   Half the world over?

   Theirs just to make reply,

   Theirs not to reason why,

    If you can’t think, why try?.

Holding back Brexit

    It’s a pushover.

III

Boris to right of them,

Commies to left of them,

T May in front of them

    Argue and chunter;

Stormed at by Brexiteers,

Blindly the pitch they queer,

May as well save our breath,

This lot just sit and sneer

    Stubborn five hundred!

IV

Cliff edge and crashing out,

Hark how the rascals shout!

Their numbers give them clout,

Wrecking democracy, while

   All the world wonders.

Let ignorant Leavers whine!

What about Just-in-Time?

They got the answer wrong;

Rebellion’s not a crime.

   Our single chance squandered.

We might have our country back,

 But for five hundred.

V

Will their shame ever fade

Over this stand they’ve made?

   All the world wonders.

Britain has made its choice,

These few deny our voice!

   Ignoble five hundred!